St. Olaf Nordic Team

  Our neighbors of Southern Minnesota (Gustavus Adolphus) came to do a bounding workout with us the other1 week, so we introduced them to a nice little place we call Hell Hill.  Some people even almost pooped their pants! After some warm ups the teams bonded over level 4 bounding intervals, and then went to watch the Ole and Gustie runners in the NCAA regional cross country meet, where our very own Jake Brown took 3rd, and Ole men took home the win.

Northfield had its first snowfall a few nights ago. In a way, it was strange to see the first few inches of fresh wet snow sticking to all the leaves still clinging stubbornly to their trees, even a week into November.  The snow wasn't much; you could maybe have double poled around a soccer field for an hour in the morning before it started melting.  But seeing those first few inches of snow puts everything in a whole new light- it makes you realize that race season is just around the corner, and it lends an entirely new sense of urgency to your training. And training is what we've been doing.  This team has been doing some seriously hard work, including bounding intervals up Buck Hill, a long double pole from Cannon Falls to Red Wing, some long L4 intervals near Nerstrand, and some speed endurance intervals that Joel imported from his summer in Bend. The same afternoon as this week's snow, we had a running/bounding time trial on the steep, long hills of Leba...